


Warning

by hauntedpoem



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Before the making of the rings, FIx It, M/M, Nightmares, Prophetic Dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 12:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11275737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: Celebrimbor dreams. He doesn't like what he dreams of but to stop evil, he must play along.





	Warning

**Author's Note:**

> In which Celebrimbor dreams of the betrayal of Sauron in excruciating detail, of the tortures and the desecration - of the future - and plans to escape it and save his city from ruin. You can blame it on the parallel consciousness theory. Anyway, this is a fix it. Of course, he had doubts  
> and thought himself crazy and overworked but keeps a cool head about it and tries to keep an eye on Sauron. While Sauron's in his bed. And that's daunting.

Some nights are really long, especially in the summer. That's what Celebrimbor thinks when he forces himself to be taken by sleep in its succouring arms.

It's too hot, even with the windows and the door to the terrace wide open. Outside, in the moonless night, everything is static, disturbed only by a lone bird's cry or the wind rustling the leaves.  
Celebrimbor is thinking and unconsciously, his brow furrows. Something disturbs him and the worst of it is that he cannot pinpoint it. Not now, at least that's what he tells himself. It's... An unsettling feeling traveling from his gut to his chest. His heart never skips a beat but at times like these he almost thinks it would. It's like a tremor, like a faint vibration traveling up into his throat settling behind his shoulder blades. Celebrimbor stretches his arms and his back, like a big cat would in order to unwind, only that in his case, the effect is foregone completely.  
Dread intensifies.  
He doesn't suffer from insomnia. At least, he never had a history of sleeplessness. It happened, in the past, being unable or more likely... Unwilling to sleep but always with a good reason. Troubles. Action plans. Worrying. But not this.  
He's at the pinnacle of his career. He's as happy as could be. Everything he wished for could be accomplished with maiarin help. He is fortunate. He tells this to himself every time.  
But something's not right. And this terrifies him.

It started after he decided he would house Annatar as a guest and as a friend. He's not sure about the latter but Annatar insists on that, although Celebrimbor still doesn't consider himself close or worthy enough to be a friend to a great and talented Maia like Annatar. At least, not yet. He hopes. But not too much, not too hard. He's always been more of an action oriented person. Hoping wouldn't have gotten him where he is now. And time has passed since the innocent irks of those nightly occurrences became nothing short of a terrifying prospect.

The problem is... He does fall asleep in the end. And that's the actually terrifying part, because he dreams and what he dreams of is too much a resemblance to his reality to actually be considered a dream. Sometimes, Celebrimbor doubts whether his current state is complete, actual awareness, the state of being awake and not a product of imagination running wild, a particle of a much larger piece. He fears he is dreaming while he is actually awake and vice versa.

So, you see... Celebrimbor has a very good reason to fear for his sanity.

He would never admit - at least not to anyone that is not Galadriel, his closest kin - that these dreams seem prophetic in nature. But he still has to write her and perhaps pay her a visit and look into her mirror so the riddle of his existence could appear less vexing.

He looks at the ceiling, he looks out of the window. He stares at nothing. It's really, really perplexing. He thinks and tries to extricate reality from wishful thinking.

And sometime, in the tedious process, the mind gives up and he succumbs to sleep where another enigma is sure to find him.  
It's too real, he keeps thinking with his dream mind. Too vivid. More like a memory. And when this thought hits, again and again, Celebrimbor forces himself to wake up because he cannot take it anymore.

In daylight, he analyses it all and shudders at his imagination. He tries to eat but oftentimes finds himself daydreaming and returning to that fragment of fabulation. This cannot be real. Cannot be real. Shouldn't. He's scared.

Last night he dreamed himself tied to the bedpost, spread like a rabbit to be eviscerated. He's been subjected to humiliation and abuse. And he kept begging for Annatar.

Of course, these dreams and their secret and sensitive matter made it even worse for him in the presence of said Annatar. Were they prophetic? Perhaps. But he wished they would not prove so.

It didn't help that Annatar got closer than a mere friend would. He let it happen, out of curiosity and then he didn't, out of utter terror for the future.

That future couldn't be allowed to exist. So to oppose it, Celebrimbor does his duty and falls into dreams, living through nightmares of fire, bloodshed, pain and power gone wrong, his lover's eyes turned evil and traitorous.  
He thinks now that it's correct what they say. Keep your enemies close. As close as it's possible.  
Annatar's face, after the haze of succumbing to the nightmares is orcish and cruel. He tells himself he didn't miss that change, however brief. It's infuriating, for Annatar never sleeps. Instead he watches Celebrimbor do it and never takes his eyes off him.  
Celebrimbor smiles despite the exhaustion. He shuts the nerves with well tested commands so Annatar cannot suspect a thing.  
It fills him with horror but he does it. He does it for the greater good.  
" What did you dream of, beloved?" He asks in that mellifluous voice of his. It's unbearably charming and insidiously deceiving but Celebrimbor mastered his response to it. He abstains from getting lost in the labyrinthine nature of his reality dreams. Torn corpses impaled on orcish spears, defiled faces, with eyes gouged out, ears cut off and mouths maced into a pulp. The tortures, the murders, the rapes, the mutilation to which his people were subjected. He masks the cringing of his flesh and spirit as a mere biological reaction to cold.  
He yawns and drags it into a wide smile. He knows his eyes sparkle. From unshed tears but they could as well due to the ecstasy of having Annatar as his lover.

"You, my love," he says, butchering the last words with another hearty yawn because that is the biggest lie he had ever said.  
"Oh?" But he presses on, something which Celebrimbor came to expect lately. And for this he is prepared with a kiss and a tender caress, buying time with silence and cajoling. "Your sleep seemed very fitful to me, you know." And wide, innocent, unsuspecting eyes. A playful smile. "I wished to wake you up from it, you didn't seem to enjoy yourself. And your beautiful mind was shut firmly away from me. I could have helped you, my love."

But you didn't even try, Celebrimbor's mind supplied, as he got past the false concern etched on Annatar's unusually attractive face. This could be amusing if it weren't so pressing, so cataclysmic, so evil. He needs to stop this... monstrosity.  
He kisses Annatar on the mouth to sample the taste. When he did so, in his reality-dream, it tasted foul. Now it was sweet.  
"I never doubted your intentions, love." He opens his body and just as he succumbs to Annatar and daydreams of a potential disaster, his mind shuts itself, a cell within a cell in which Celebrimbor continues working on the escape plan.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
